Your life matters, not because of what you have done or what you possess. Even when things go wrong or you make mistakes, your life still matters. It matters, because God says it does. There is a tendency for a man to measure his worth with the wrong measurement system, to compare his life with others or not like his place on the team. But when a man knows who he is in the eyes of God, he experiences his significance. Every event and relationship has unlimited potential. He has made it to the Big Leagues. Welcome to the Big Leagues—Every Man’s Journey to Significance, The Darrel Chaney Story, shows a utility player’s struggle--on one of the best baseball teams to ever take the field--with ambushes, setbacks, minimum wage one year contracts and changes beyond his control. But he makes his Top-10 list, encounters the Eternal and realizes he has his place on the team and in history. Through it all, he discovered his God given significance and found it was not only the best way to play in the Big Leagues; it was the way to live a Big League life. Welcome to the Big Leagues tells the baseball story, and at the same time it helps every man learn the same lessons. He needs to make his Top-10 list, encounter the Eternal and know his place on the team and in history. Every man can experience his God given significance. Many men are changed by the world, but the man who knows his significance, that his life matters, is a man who will change the world. He is in the Big Leagues.

On March 31, 1998, more than 48,500 fans cheered the arrival of Major League Baseball's newest expansion team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. In the first book ever to chronicle the birth of a major-league baseball franchise from conception to Opening Day, Big League, Big Time takes you inside the Diamondbacks dugout -- and their corporate suite -- to examine the billion-dollar business of baseball and its enormous impact on our culture. While many prominent people went to bat for baseball in Phoenix, sports entrepreneur Jerry Colangelo, the Diamondbacks' managing general partner, swung for the fences and scored a league-envious, $355 million state-of-the-art baseball facility. Big League, Big Time discloses how Colangelo's revolutionary vision for the Diamondbacks affected all aspects of the club -- especially his choice of personnel, from Jay Bell and Andy Benes to former Yankees manager Buck Showalter, "a young man with old-fashioned ideas." But even before they had drafted a player, the Diamondbacks front office was well aware that marketing "The Show" was the off-the-field game they couldn't afford to lose. Read the inside story of how they chose the team's name and colors, successfully maneuvered multimillion-dollar deals with a host of major sponsors, determinedly wooed the vast Mexican market, attracted such celebrity coinvestors as Billy Crystal and Lou Gosset, Jr., and became one of the five highest revenue-producing franchises before a single game was played. Complete with player profiles, an exclusive inside-the-war-room took at the expansion draft, and a dissection of the media's role in the global growth of the sports industry, Big League, Big Time is a rare glimpse into the politics, business, and promise of baseball -- a fascinating analysis of how one city cultivated a very special field of dreams.

Increase your fluency of English through the mastery of common English idioms and expressions. All Native English-speakers use a large number of proverbs and colloquial expressions in their daily conversations. These common sayings, which evolved over the centuries, are like "codes" that reveal the cultural values and attitudes of the speakers. To obtain complete fluency in the English language it is necessary to be familiar with these expressions and know how and when to use them. With a user-friendly format, The Cheater's Guide to Speaking English like a Native is a shortcut to achieving that goal.

A gloriously funny, nostalgic memoir of a popular ESPN reporter who, in the summer of 1994, was a fresh-out-of-college intern for a minor league baseball team. Madness and charm ensue as Ryan McGee spends the season steeped in sweat, fertilizer, nacho cheese sauce, and pure, unadulterated joy in North Carolina with the Asheville Tourists. "A sweet and funny book that reminds us it’s not just the game itself that draws us. It’s also the people." —Tom Verducci, MLB Network, Fox & Sports Illustrated, and New York Times bestselling author of The Yankee Years In the spring of 1994, Ryan McGee (new college graduate) bombed his coveted interview with ESPN--the only place he ever wanted to work. But he did receive one job offer: to work for $100 a week for the Asheville Tourists, a proud minor league baseball team in the heart of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. McCormick Field, home to the Tourists, had once been graced by Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Jackie Robinson. What could go wrong? Welcome to the Circus of Baseball is McGee’s hilarious, charming memoir of his first summer working in the sporting world. He has since risen the ESPN ranks to national TV, radio, and Internet host, but his time in Asheville still looms large. Among the many jewels of his experience. . . McGee recounts one of the most entertaining on-field brawls you’ll ever witness (between the fourteen league mascots who had assembled for the all-star game--an eight-foot-tall foam-costumed crustacean, a pudgy red fox, a giant skunk . . . and they were really fighting), as well as the nervous moment he oversaw the game-day entertainer known as "Captain Dynamite and His Exploding Coffin of Death." Most important, McGee details a magical summer of baseball, of learning the ropes, of the ins-and-outs of running a minor league team, and of coming to understand how the pulse of a community can beat gloriously through a minor league ball club. Welcome to the Circus of Baseball is a baseball classic in the making.

“Dave Zirin is the best young sportswriter in America.”—Robert Lipsyte This much-anticipated sequel to What’s My Name, Fool? by acclaimed commentator Dave Zirin breaks new ground in sports writing, looking at the controversies and trends now shaping sports in the United States—and abroad. Features chapters such as “Barry Bonds is Gonna Git Your Mama: The Last Word on Steroids,” “Pro Basketball and the Two Souls of Hip-Hop,” “An Icon’s Redemption: The Great Roberto Clemente,” and “Beisbol: How the Major Leagues Eat Their Young.” Zirin’s commentary is always insightful, never predictable. Dave Zirin is the author of the widely acclaimed book What’s My Name, Fool? (Haymarket Books) and writes the weekly column “Edge of Sports” (edgeofsports.com). He writes a regular column for The Nation and Slam magazine and has appeared as a sports commentator on ESPN TV and radio, CBNC, WNBC, Democracy Now!, Air America, Radio Nation, and Pacifica. Chuck D redefined rap music and hip-hop culture as leader and co-founder of the legendary rap group Public Enemy. Spike Lee calls him “one of the most politically and socially conscious artists of any generation.” He co-hosts a weekly radio show on Air America.

After his unspectacular professional baseball career ends with a knee injury in Toledo, Ohio, Johnny Earl gets busted for selling cocaine. After serving seven years in prison, all he wants to do is return to his hometown of Steubenville, retrieve the drug money he stashed before he went to jail, and start a new life where no one has ever heard of Johnny Earl. However, before he can leave town with his money, Johnny is picked up for questioning in the murder of Rayce Daubner, the FBI informant who had set him up on drug charges in the first place. Then his former prison cellmate shows up--a white supremacist who wants the drug money to help fund an Aryan nation in the wilds of Idaho. Five memorable characters, each with a separate agenda, come together in this layered tale of murder, deceit, and political intrigue.

This volume considers world-making as the intersection of the fan pilgrimage experience and the responses of destinations. It critically examines the emerging field of popular culture tourism and its close connection with fan studies and placemaking. The chapters illustrate how different destinations capitalise on expressive cultural practices to attract fan tourists, the processes involved in their tourismification, and the outcomes for both visitors and local communities. The book establishes a common ground for the comprehensive and critical study of popular culture tourism development and fandom. It integrates theory and practice and provides evidence-based recommendations for popular culture destinations. It is a useful resource for researchers in tourism management, fandom, pop culture and media studies, as well as for those working in the tourism industry.

A CHRISTMAS AS BIG AS TEXAS!

Most Blue Jays fans have taken in a game or two at Rogers Centre, remember where they were when Joe Carter hit his World Series–winning home run in 1993, and took in every moment of the Jays' historic 2015 postseason run. But only real fans know who spent two decades as the team's BJ Birdy mascot, can name the opposing player who was once jailed for hitting a seagull with a thrown baseball at Exhibition Stadium, or how long it takes to open the Rogers Centre roof. 100 Things Blue Jays Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die stands as the ultimate resource for true fans of Canada's sole major league baseball team. Author Steve Clarke has collected every essential piece of Blue Jays knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and ranks them all, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as readers progress on their way to fan superstardom. This updated edition includes the Blue Jay's recent success and revival, including the push to the 2015 American League Championship Series and Josh Donaldson's MVP season.

The book focuses on how, when, where and why the US-based professional sports leagues extend their brands and penetrate markets in nations across the globe. The book examines the strategies, progress and expectations of each league despite the cultural, economic and political barriers that exist between and within countries and areas. It offers a model of the sports business and, where appropriate, the emergence, evolution and growth of prominent women's sports leagues are documented. This book is unique as there are no other academic publications that study and report the global ambitions of this special group of organizations in one volume. Readers such as college and university sports history, management, marketing and international business professors, students and researchers can use and apply the book, as either a teaching supplement, reference and/or literature source. It will also appeal to targeted groups beyond the academic community with strategic economic incentives to learn about sports capitalism, such as sports entrepreneurs and league officials.